Stuff White People Like

Ok, first book review! In the closing days of my tenure at Barnes & Noble I was asked by a customer if we had a particular book. I asked the book’s title and the lady replied, “Stuff White People Like”. I was startled at first. That sounded…racist? This was Boulder Colorado after all. This was White People CENTRAL!! Any good white person worth their salt knows that the celebration of ethnic and cultural diversity is one of the highest of all possible virtues…except the celebration of white culture which is racist.

The woman went on to explain that it was a satire book making fun of white people and the stuff they like. “Whew” I thought, “we’re safe. Making fun of white people is certainly OK.”

Plus, the lady said she heard the book review on NPR. (Just to digress, White People love to start their conversations with, “You know, I was listening to NPR this morning and…”. As a side note, my cultural elitism runs to the other side of the pond so my conversations start out with, “You know I was listening to the BBC the other day and…”)

Anyhow, as I was thumbing through I found myself laughing outloud and realized when I left for China and was missing Boulder, all I had to do was pull this book out and I’d be right back at home.

Its all right there. 150 topics such as:

Gifted Children: White People love gifted children. Do you know why? Because an astonding 100% of their children are gifted. Isn’t that amazing?

Awareness: An interesting fact about White People is that they firmly believe all the world’s problems can be solved through “awareness”- meaning the process of making other people aware of problems, magically causing someone else, like the government, to fix it.

Whole Foods: White People need organic food to survive, and where they purchase this food is as important as what they buy. Whole Foods stores have replaced churches and cathedrals as the most important buildings in society.

Knowing What’s Best for Poor People: White people spend a lot of time worrying about poor people. It takes up a pretty significant portion of their day. They feel guilty and sad that poor people shop at Wal-Mart instead of Whole Foods, they vote Republican instead of Democratic, that they go to community college or get a job instead of studying art at college.

Anyhow, the book has been a runaway best seller and is based on the popular website www.stuffwhitepeoplelike.com

If you want to spend a couple hours repeating, “Oh God, thats so true” make sure to pick up a copy,